Fewer vs Snark - What's the difference?
fewer | snark |
The comparative of few ; a smaller number.
Snide remarks.
To express oneself in a snarky fashion
* {{quote-news, 2009, January 23, Dwight Garner, The Mahvelous and the Damned, New York Times
, passage=Other would-be Bright Young People, Lytton Strachey snarked , seemed to have “just a few feathers where brains should be.” }}
(obsolete) To snort.
(mathematics) A graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.
(particle) A fluke or unrepeatable result or detection in an experiment.
As a determiner fewer
is the comparative of few ; a smaller number.As a noun snark is
snide remarks or snark can be (mathematics) a graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.As a verb snark is
to express oneself in a snarky fashion.fewer
English
Determiner
(en-det) (superlative fewest)- Fewer women wear hats these days.
- There are fewer tigers than there were a hundred years ago.
Usage notes
See also
* lesssnark
English
Etymology 1
Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka, and English snort, and snore. Noun sense of “snide remarks” derived from snarky (1906), from snark (v.) "to snort" (1866) by onomatopoiea. (en)Noun
(-)Synonyms
* (snide comments) sarcasmVerb
(en verb)citation
Derived terms
* snarkerEtymology 2
From (Snark), coined by (Lewis Carroll) as a nonce word in 1874 (The Hunting of the Snark), about the quest for an elusive creature. In sense of “a type of mathematical graph”, named as such in 1976 by (Martin Gardner) for their elusiveness.Martin Gardner, (Mathematical Games), (Scientific American), issue 234, volume 4, pp. 126–130, 1976.Noun
(en noun)- Cabrera's Valentine's Day monopole detection or some extremely energetic cosmic rays could be examples of snarks .
